My media history with Transformers did not set me up well for enjoying Transformers comic books. The 90’s Transformers animated TV series always had some cool visualizations but suffered from “Not Batman or X-Men” syndrome. Then came a flurry of Michael Bay / Shia Lebeauf action concussions, and although I’ll stand by early Shia in the first movie, it’s never a good sign when you can only tell one robot apart because he’s yellow.

The more I’ve gotten into comic books, though, the more I realized Transformers is an exciting and varied mythology, that has been handled extremely well by IDW publishing.

Below you’ll find a reading order for Transformers comics published by IDW. As always, if you have suggestions for the order, let me hear about them in the comments and I’ll take a look.

Enjoy the comics!

Transformers Comics Reading Order

The IDW Transformers Collections

While I lay out each storyline in order below, I’ll first note that IDW has several larger, hardcover collections that make the Transformers reading experience much smoother. These tend to be more expensive, but they also look great on a bookshelf and easily collect the below storylines.

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IDW’s Transformers comics launch with a number of core mini series, and no actual long-running ongoing single comic. As a result, Phase 1 of the Transformers comic book experience is broken up across mini events like Infiltration, which runs from issues #0 to #6, before Transformers jumps to a new comic book title for the next most relevant series.

The core sequence of events for this period is Infiltration –> Escalation –> Devastation.

You can skip this, pretty much without question, but I find it endlessly fascinating that Transformers crossed over with the Brian Michael Bendis New Avengers of Marvel Comics fame. This will be more interesting to those of you following along in the Complete Marvel Reading Order.

Transformers Phase 2 – More Than Meets The Eye and Robots in Disguise

The Transformers; Autocracy Trilogy collects the Autocracy, Monstrosity, and Primacy miniseries. These were all published during Phase 2 of IDW’s Transformers comics, and although chronologically they flashback to earlier times, I prefer them at the beginning of the Phase 2 material.

Dark Cybertron Event Through Revolution

Reading Order: Dark Cybertron #1, More Than Meets the Eye #23, Robots in Disguise #23, More Than Meets the Eye #24, Robots in Disguise #24, More Than Meets the Eye #25, Robots in Disguise #25, More Than Meets the Eye #26, Robots in Disguise #26, More Than Meets the Eye #27, Robots in Disguise #27, Dark Cybertron #2

2016 IDW Expanded Universe

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About Dave

Dave is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Comic Book Herald, and also the Boss of assigning himself fancy titles. He's a long-time comic book fan, and can be seen most evenings in Batman pajama pants. Contact Dave @comicbookherald on Twitter or via email at dave@comicbookherald.com.

Reader Interactions

Comments

I have read all the comics in this list here and I’m absolutely loving it, it would be mich appreciated if the list was updated as this is my very first comic book series and would love to read what happens next.

I was just about to leave a message somewhere on here about transformers comics. Specifically the Roberts and barber stuff leading to revolution. More than meets the eye is an amazing series, and has seriously interrupted my civil war 2 reading (I’m way behind now.)

Anyways, if you have never seen the original animated movie, you should. Honestly, while rewatching most of this stuff with my son, tf comes out a lot stronger than batman animated and xmen. Don’t get me wrong, when I was younger I would have disagreed. But the movie ranks up there (animation wise) with Rene laloux IMO. Maybe it’s because jlu and all that seems to overshadow batman animated?

If u are a fan of cosmic operas like annihilation or planet hulk, then starting with “death of Optimus prime” and mtmte and rid are for u

More Than Meets the Eye blew me away. I did not expect to care, and found myself falling in love with these characters and the Transformers mythology. It’s incredible comic book storytelling, although I still have a hard as hell time telling Transformers apart (my biggest knock on the art, although it’s frequently done very well).

To be fair, it’s not the artist’s fault.. A ton of Transformers are repaints of other Transformers. It’s part of the reason the joke comes up a few times about all the good names being taken.. also why some have stupid forms (like Ambulon, the guy who turns into a leg). It’s just how Transformers are since the entire series was designed around selling toys.. the fact that the stories have been good at times is kind of a shock..

I recently watched Beast Wars (ugg..) and it was funny how many things I was like “this is totally some weird thing they came up with to sell toys” and it was.